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Donald Trump last night sacked another member of his Cabinet, announcing the decision on Twitter. David Shulkin, the veterans affairs secretary, had been embroiled in an ethics controversy after he was found to have taken his wife on a business trip to Europe, during which he improperly accepted tickets to Wimbledon.

Mr Trump said he would nominate as a replacement his personal White House doctor Admiral Ronny Jackson.

Shulkin is the second Cabinet secretary to depart over controversies involving expensive travel, following former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price's resignation last September.

Trump is nominating Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson to succeed Shulkin, a former Obama administration official and the first non-veteran ever to head Veterans Affairs. Jackson has served since 2013 as the Physician to the president, and gained a national profile earlier this year for holding a sweeping press conference on the president's health.

I am pleased to announce that I intend to nominate highly respected Admiral Ronny L. Jackson, MD, as the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs....

Trump selected Robert Wilkie, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, to serve as the acting head of Veteran Affairs . It is government's second largest department, responsible for 9 million military veterans in more than 1,700 government-run health facilities.

The selection of Wilkie bypasses VA Deputy Secretary Tom Bowman, who has come under criticism for being too moderate to push Trump's agenda of fixing veterans' care.

Shulkin had continued to insist he had the full confidence of the White House amid continuing investigations over his travel and leadership of the department.

He had agreed to reimburse the government more than $4,000 after the Veteran Affairs' internal watchdog concluded last month that he had improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and that his then-chief of staff had doctored emails to justify his wife traveling to Europe with him at taxpayer expense.

Shulkin also blamed internal drama at the agency on a half-dozen or so political appointees who were rebelling against him and Bowman, insisting he had White House backing to fire them.

But the continuing Veteran Affairs infighting and a fresh raft of Veteran Affairs watchdog reports documenting leadership failures and spending waste - as well as fresh allegations being reviewed by the IG that Shulkin used a member of his security detail to run personal errands - proved too much of a distraction.

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin Credit:
jose Luis Magana/AP

The sudden departure comes as Trump is currently seeking to expand the Veterans Choice program, a campaign promise that major veterans' groups worry could be an unwanted step toward privatizing Veteran Affairs health care. His plan remains in limbo in Congress after lawmakers declined last week to include it in a spending bill.

Having pushed through legislation in Trump's first year making it easier to fire bad Veteran Affairs employees and speed disability appeals, Shulkin leaves behind a department in disarray. Several projects remain unfinished, including a multibillion-dollar overhaul of electronic medical records aimed at speeding up wait times for veterans seeking medical care as well as expanded mental health treatment for veterans at higher risk of suicide.

In just the last month, Trump has also replaced his secretary of state and national security advisor adding to the long list of White House departures since the president took office.

During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly pledged to fix Veteran Affairs , which was still reeling after a 2014 scandal at the Phoenix Veteran Affairs medical center, in which veterans waited months for care even as VA employees created secret waiting lists to cover up delays. Criticizing the department as "the most corrupt," Trump said he would bring accountability and expand access to private doctors, promising to triple the number of veterans "seeing the doctor of their choice."

Currently, more than 30 percent of Veteran Affairs appointments are made in the private sector.

The son of an Army psychiatrist and grandson of a Veteran Affairs pharmacist, Shulkin is a former president of the Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey.

He was president and CEO of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and chief medical officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.